Digital Collaborative Opportunities Plaza Current Affairs - 2019

India’s National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM) has established second Digital Collaborative Opportunities Plaza (SIDCOP) platform in Guiyang, China. It is India’s second IT corridor in China to provide Indian IT firms access to growing Chinese software market. The first corridor Digital Collaborative Opportunities Plaza (SIDCOP) platform was established in Chinese port city of Dalian.

Key Facts

The Guiyang corridor will focus on Big Data, whereas earlier launched Dalian corridor focused on Internet of Things (IoT). The Guiyang corridor intends to create online and offline presence to promote co-create culture between two large neighbours in Big Data space. It is aimed at setting up local offices and assisting companies from Guiyang to establish software and IT units in India. This initiative will give big impetus to cooperation between India and China in IT-enabled services (ITES) sector. Soon after launch of second IT corridor, Indian IT companies signed agreement worth US $6 million with Chinese customers. The pilot projects launched on SIDCOP platform will be executed over next year.

Background

Indian IT firms have presence in more than 70 countries in the world, generating employment for up to 12 million people worldwide. In China, Indian IT companies are present in 10 cities with total work-force of around 25,000 employees. In 2013, Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of China had valued country’s IT market at over US $493 billion. For India, getting access to China’s IT market is important to address massive trade deficit which has now spiralled to over US $51 billion. India has been demanding China to provide market access to Indian IT and pharmaceutical firms for several years to reduce bilateral trade deficit.